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City of strangers needs to warm up

This happens all the time, mostly because I have a dog that invites comment and compliments.

Instead of replying with a simple thank you, I usually add something about how he's not so lovely after he has rolled in something smelly or when he has caught a squirrel. One thing leads to another and, pretty soon, I have walked several blocks with a fellow Torontonian, discussing everything from the weather to whether it was anybody's business that TTC boss Adam Giambrone was shtupping a student.

I confess that I talk to strangers all the time – in checkout lines, at intersections, on streetcars or buses, wherever, whenever.

Sometimes I get strange "Who is this crazy lady?" looks. But mostly not. That's because this is a big city, with a lot of solitary people in it, all aching to reach out and connect with someone.

"The stranger himself is a threatening figure and few people can take great pleasure in that world of strangers, the cosmopolitan city," writes American sociologist Richard Sennett in The Fall of Public Man, one of his many books lamenting how western civilization has retreated into private niches and behind walls.

He decries how we no longer find meaningful "value in the streets" – except maybe for shopping.

And most of the time that's true in Toronto.

No matter how many people come from how many cultures where people live in teeming, seething public, Toronto maintains its icy chill, even in the hottest months.

Proof: We hang out on our back decks while our expansive front verandas remain empty.

Too many of us reject the urban hustle and negotiate our way on lifeless thoroughfares that get us from one place to another with a maximum of speed and minimum of traffic. Lose a car lane on Jarvis St.? The horror!

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To live in Toronto, to really live in Toronto and not just on its surface, is to live outside one's car and condo, to see and smell the streets and to greet the people who, like you, are part of this spectacularly diverse tableau.

Whether that involves mixing into the ethnic stew of west Eglinton W., or negotiating the clash of working poor and yuppies that is Queen St. E., it's about forming the bonds, however slight, that remind us we're all in this together.

It is, just as we do so very well during our great civic parties like Gay Pride, Nuit Blanche or the Beaches International Jazz Festival, to make connections, to find our commonalities and to forge a community that transcends politics and class.

I feel sorry for my Riverdale neighbours who escape town every August when Taste of the Danforth rolls around. "What's the big deal about souvlaki on a stick?" they ask.

But it's not because of the food – mostly marginal – that Taste thrives. It's because we have permission to touch, to literally step on each others' toes. No worries! No problem!

You can find yourself in a happy crush of hundreds of thousands and never need a cop.

How cool is that?

How cool was last Sunday when, at 6 p.m., after Sidney Crosby slapped in that winning goal, strangers started hugging each other all over town?

And yet, how many people say they "hate crowds" even as they face another weekend with no more company than Doritos and a stack of DVDs?

That's why I would love to see us break out of the gated communities of our minds and, instead, smile – really smile – as we pass each other in the park or stand on the subway platform. Offer a hand to somebody struggling with groceries or a stroller. Help the proverbial little old lady across the street.

It costs nothing – and it doesn't make life in the big city more dangerous. It makes us recognize the humanity in one another. Maybe so much so that no child goes to school hungry and nobody sleeps on a heating grate.

If only more of us did it, we could see that, despite the colour of our skins and the cut of our suits, we're all together in this boat called Toronto.

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